


there is no fate but what you make

by bismuthBallistics



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Kinda, M/M, Minor Character Death, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, minor depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2363693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bismuthBallistics/pseuds/bismuthBallistics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death seems to follow Wash like a fucking shadow. Except maybe not. Also, he and Tucker aren’t soulmates, but who cares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is no fate but what you make

Wash ducks around a corner as gunfire from the mounted turret sprays at him. It’s not perfect cover, because the turret is mounted on a  _Warthog_ , and will therefore be chasing him in seconds, but it does mean no bullets for a tiny bit and that is more than acceptable.

Around the corner, Maine roars. Wash hears the creak of metal buckling and screams as the bullets  _rat-a-tat-tat_  into the ground. Then the whirr of the turret slows to a halt and Washington deems it an acceptable field risk to spin back around the corner and back Maine up.

The Insurrectionist soldiers from the Warthog — driver, shotgun and turret operator — have swung their primary firearms off their backs and are trying to keep Maine pinned down and away from them. Good. Well, bad for Maine, but good for Wash, because they haven’t noticed him. Grey blends well with these walls, even if the yellow is a little flashy. His trigger hand tingles like it’s been shocked at the wrist, and he flexes his fingers quickly before taking his shot.

Bam, bam, bam. Three headshots and they’re down.

Wash does a little fistpump, because  _aw yeah._ Who’s the weapons specialist on the team? Sure, he’s no sharpshooter, but he gets the job done. His right wrist cramps and burns, probably from the awkward angle he’s got on the trigger and he rotates it a bit before chasing after Maine. The big dumbass is running straight into another firefight, and he could use a little help.

***

Wash strips off his armor piece by piece. Helmet first, then unlatching the chestplate. He bends over before he does this, because at least one of the pieces is going to fall and Wash would prefer it not be both. He catches the front piece and slides the back piece off, stacking them neatly on top of each other. Then the gloves, because the entire lower half of the armor is a bitch to get off and on if you don’t have your real delicate fine motor skills.

Agent Washington peels back his glove and freezes. This morning, “Harley” was printed at the base of his right wrist in thick green block lettering. Now the letters are thin, almost withered, and the green has faded into the reddish brown color of a bloodstain.

Wash drops the glove on his neat pile of armor, then slips off the other one. His fingers are trembling.

Slowly he sits on the edge of his bed. Then he flops back, a dull roar in his ears. It’d be easy to say that his mind’s gone blank, but it’d be more accurate to say that his mind is full of flitting, flickering thoughts. He just can’t pay attention to any of them long enough for them to mean anything.

The bed presses the waist of Wash’s codpiece into his back. A dull ache is throbbing in the base of his spine.

It’s stupid to mourn someone you’ve never met. He’s a soldier, for crying out loud. He should be tougher than this. There are people born without soulmates altogether, people whose paths only cross for a second. People whose soulmates die before they meet. Apparently that’s him.

Everyone with a soulmate has a chance to meet them in their lifetime. And if they last long enough, they will meet. At least, that’s what Wash has always believed.

Wash has wondered whether he and his soulmate might not meet. He had just thought that if so, it would be him who wouldn’t last long enough.

***

Wash isn’t sure whether he wants to kiss Tucker or punch him. Both seem like good options as he carefully doesn’t study the way Tucker’s lips curl into a smirk. You don’t need to study things you already have memorized. “Jumping jacks, Tucker,” Wash bites out. “I said fifty, not fifteen.”

"Fuck you," Tucker snaps, the smirk dropping off his face, but he does it. Wash isn’t sure why Tucker listens to him — after all, the only way a military functions is if the low-ranked officers obey the high-ranking ones, and in this small, sad military of three there’s not much Wash could do to enforce his orders. Not without fostering some serious physical damage and trust issues, which are exactly what he’s trying to  _avoid._  But at least Tucker does listen.

Or maybe not.

"What are you trying to accomplish?" Wash asks as Tucker pauses after his fifth jumping jack. "I know you can do this, you’ve done it before."

"I’m doing it in increments." Tucker pauses and bites his lip. Wash tracks the way his cheeks crease into dimples, then scolds himself internally because  _no Wash, no_. “That’s a thing, right?”

All thoughts of dimples slip from his mind. Wash pinches the bridge of his nose, rocking onto the balls of his feet. “Are you doing this just to irritate me? I feel like you’re doing this to irritate me.”

Tucker flips him off, and Wash resists the urge to flip him off right back. He is a mature person who does not do things like give his subordinates the bird.

"Do I have to do jumping jacks with you? Because we can go the patronizing route if that’s what it takes, but it’ll be a waste of everyone’s time. Caboose already finished his."

"Caboose is superhuman and I’ve been doing fucking cardio since dawn."

Wash rolls his eyes. Every forty-five minutes on the dot he’s been letting Tucker get water and stretch out his legs. “In Project Freelancer we’d have cardio days that would last hours without breaks. All things considered I think you have it pretty good.”

“Bullshit you did.” Tucker studies his face and Wash wonders whether it looks like he’s lying. He’s really not. “Dude, it’s like you’re not even human.”

“I’m not a robot,” Wash says dryly, and Tucker gives him one of the most skeptical looks he’s ever seen.

“I mean, you could be. I don’t know anything about you, you could have just been built one day like Tex or Lopez or something.” Wash frowns at him, and Tucker crosses his arms over his chest. “Dude, I know more about them then I know about you. Lopez fell in love with a tank and he thought Sarge was his dad, and Tex was actually sort of a human for a while. She had a whole life. I don’t even know your name.”

“Nice try. You still have to do cardio.”

“You suck.”

***

“No, really though,” Tucker says at lunch through a mouthful of sandwich. “I don’t know anything about you.”

“Do you have a point with this?” Wash looks at him with one eyebrow raised. “Because you’re not getting out of training this afternoon. You can’t distract me that easily.”

Tucker scoffs. “Dude, I’m a master at distraction. I could so get out of training. But no, I really wanna know. Come on, you know about Junior and stuff, it’s not fair.”

Wash sighs and puts down his sandwich. It won’t hurt to humor Tucker, after all. “Fine. But don’t try and distract me during laps this afternoon.” Tucker glares at him, and Wash looks back, utterly unimpressed. “What do you want to know?”

Tucker leans in over the table. “Well, for starters, there’s no way your name’s actually Washington.”

“It’s David. It was David. But Washington’s fine. Wash is better.” Wash studies Tucker’s eyes to see if they’ll light up with recognition, with excitement or disappointment or  _anything_. Nothing. He’s not the name on Tucker’s wrist. It was genuine curiousity and not hopefulness that prompted the question.

Tucker nods, stretching out his wrists. “Right. Cool. So… what about life outside the military? Tell me about yourself.” He gives Wash a smirky grin, like he knows exactly how  _first-date_  this sounds, and Wash rolls his eyes back.

"I like skateboarding. And cats." Wash pauses, trying to think of something else. His entire life for the past — god, how many years? — has been the military, has been Project Freelancer. Even taking it down. That’s… kind of sad, actually. "I went to jail that one time. Well, two times, but that was holding overnight, it didn’t count."

Tucker spits crumbs in laughter. “Okay, now I really wanna hear that story.” Wash shakes his head, because there is no story. He knocked over a couple of empty trashcans when he was nineteen and drunk out of his mind. That’s it.

"Fine, whatever." Tucker sticks out his tongue at Wash. "You got a family?" Wash looks at him skeptically, and Tucker sticks out his tongue again. "No, seriously, you know about my kid, fair’s fair."

"I really don’t think this is what you’re looking for."

"Dude, spill."

Wash rolls his eyes and starts listing off his family members, his voice emotionless. If he thinks too hard about any of these people, he’ll crack. And then they’ll still be stuck in a box canyon in the jungle, only they’ll be screwed. “My sister Kaliska was killed in action when a peace negotiation with the Sangheili went wrong. She was hit by a stray bullet from her own side. My mother Carrie died of lung cancer six months after my other mom, Tara. She died of old age. I don’t have any children, in part because my soulmate died before I met them, when I was still in Project Freelancer.”

Tucker’s mouth is open. “That’s… that’s fucked up. What, does everyone around you die?”

Washington glares at him. “Apparently. It’s a testament to Carolina and Epsilon that they’re still alive, though I will say Epsilon tried his best.”

Tucker shuts his mouth with a snap. Wash feels a stab of guilt, because bringing up Carolina and Epsilon was probably below the belt. Even talking about how his family is all dead was a bit harsh; Tucker just wanted to know about him. But it’s really not Tucker’s business, any more than it’s a topic Wash likes to think about, so. Fair’s fair.

So Wash takes a bite of his sandwich instead.

Running his hands through his hair, Tucker huffs. “Dude, I’m.” Wash looks up at him through his eyelashes, challenging him to say a very insufficient  _I’m sorry._ Tucker bites his lip. “I don’t have one. A soulmate,” he adds at Wash’s bemused look. “I don’t have a soulmate. If your misery wants any company.”

Wash stares at him, deadpan in that way that he knows makes people uncomfortable, while he absorbs information that he’s not sure what to do with. He learned that tactic of stonewall calculation from the Counselor, and Delta a bit.

"I mean, my life in no way sucks as hard as yours does. But, y’know, you’re not alone in being totally fucking alone in the destiny department."

Wash snorts a tiny bit at that, and Tucker half-smiles bitterly. “So you can laugh. That might rule you out for being a robot.”

Instead of pointing out that Tucker’s seen him laugh and even smile before, Wash settles for, “You’re lucky to see that rare sight. My sense of humor was permanently damaged back in Project Freelancer by too many bad puns and knock-knock jokes.”

He breaks into a smile at the end of his sentence, and Tucker grins back at him.

***

In the dim light of Washington’s cell, the green lines of Locus’s armor don’t show up. When he’s standing between Wash and the one crappy lightbulb in the room, he just looks like the outline of a skeleton. Like the death that seems to follow Wash around. Maybe it’s finally Wash’s turn.

Tucker’s out, though. Tucker and Caboose and Grif and Simmons, Wash got them out. They’ll get off this fucking planet. They’ll live.

Sarge and Donut, maybe not. Wash prides himself on fighting for people, on saving people, but he’s also not stupid enough to forget that his version of saving people usually involves some casualties.

Locus smacks Wash with the butt of his gun, but Wash decides he’d rather not slide out of his thoughts and back into reality. His head tips back, and as he falls into unconciousness he thinks that maybe he won’t wake up, and that maybe if he doesn’t the others might actually survive this shit.

***

Wash sits in the medbay of the New Republic, waiting for Tucker to die.

That’s a bit grim considering Tucker and the New Republic got him, Sarge and Donut out relatively unharmed, and certainly not dead, but all that good news just means Wash is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tucker took a bullet an inch and a half away from his heart saving Wash, and Washington just doesn’t have it in him to believe that Tucker won’t die because of it.

On a cot next to Wash’s chair, Tucker huffs out a tiny, snoring breath and Wash half-smiles fondly. He clasps his hand around Tucker’s in a silent apology and promises him that he’s not going to leave Tucker until the end. It’s the least he can do.

"Thanks," Wash mumbles to an utterly unconcious Tucker. "For asking. I’m sorry I did this to you."

***

"Wake up, you dick, I did not take a bullet so you could sleep through my triumphant recovery. Come on, tell me I could do better if I bothered to put in effort or something."

Washington is awake instantly — a side effect of working for a highly paranoid military organization — and can feel every part of his body ache from sitting in a chair for the past week and a half.

More important, though, is the voice, which is not a voice Wash is supposed to ever hear again. Tucker is sitting upright in his cot next to Wash, twirling a marker in between the fingers of his right hand and laughing. Wash makes a mental note to check a mirror as soon as possible and squeezes Tucker’s other hand with his own where they’re still connected. 

Tucker grins. “Finally. I’ve been up for twenty minutes and I’m not allowed to get up. I’m so fucking bored but they told me to let you sleep. Something about you staying awake at my side for days?”

"I must have missed that part," Wash deadpans automatically, still a bit stuck on Tucker. Being alive. "I was on a lot of pain medication for a while there."

"I know the feeling," Tucker says, shrugging towards where they’ve got him on a drip. "Shit, ow."

"You’re not dead," Wash says, squeezing Tucker’s hand again.

"Nope. Neither are you, even though you tried pretty hard. I guess you’re just tough." Tucker laughs and squeezes back. "Not as tough as me, though."

He stops laughing when Wash kisses him.

When Wash pulls back, he freezes at the look on Tucker’s face: unreadable. “I. Sorry, I’m. I’m sorry. You’re awake. It’s kind of—”

"Oh fuck yes, we are doing this," Tucker says, scrambling back towards Wash even as he winces from moving too fast. "Do you have any idea how much I wished I’d done this before you decided to be stupid and self sacrificial, we are doing this right fucking now—"

"Not until you’re allowed out of bed, moron!" The nurse calls from the next room. Wash jumps; he’s entirely forgotten about her. "And you!" She sticks her head around the corner, pointing at Wash with a pen. "Do not break the captain, I don’t care if you _are_  soulmates.”

"We’re not soulmates," Wash calls back to her. "Screw fate," he says more quietly to Tucker, who’s already moving to kiss him again. Saying it out loud feels kind of good.


End file.
